Unfailing Love

Posted on by korgrocker

“You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies. You honour me by anointing my head with oil. My cup overflows with blessings. Surely your goodness and unfailing love will pursue me all the days of my life, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever”.
Psalm 23:5-6 NLT

David identified God’s goodness and includes with it His “unfailing love”. Other translations translate verse 6 as “Surely goodness and mercy and unfailing love shall follow me all the days of my life …” (AMP) or “faithful love” (CSB) or “love” (NIV). But we get the picture. God’s love is faithful and unfailing and it will pursue us “all the days of [our] lives”. The theme of God’s love is impregnated within the Bible from cover to cover. A favourite mention of God’s love for me can be found in another Davidic Psalm. We read in Psalm 36:5, 10, “Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. … Pour out your unfailing love on those who love you; give justice to those with honest hearts”. We enlightened men and women in the 21st Century know that the extent of the “heavens” have not yet been discovered , adding weight to the extent of God’s love. More and more powerful telescopes just find more and more of the universe, with no end in sight. And we know that the region “beyond the clouds” has no end to it either. 

There are some human examples of “unfailing love” in the Bible, and the Book of Ruth tells the story of an extraordinary woman who uttered the statement to her mother-in-law, “ … Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the Lord punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” (Ruth 1:16-17). We could also turn to the Book of Hosea, a man who went to extraordinary lengths in love for his wayward wife, Gomer. But Jesus told a parable about a father and two sons, one a waster who squandered his inheritance before finally realised that his way of sin could not be sustained and that he had to repent and get things put right with his father. The son put together a humble and repentant statement and started for home. We read in Jesus’ parable what he was going to say, “I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant“” (Luke 15:18-19). But look at the unfailing love of his father, who daily kept watch just in case his wayward son was returning home, “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him” (Luke 15:20). That’s “unfailing love” pursuing a sinner.  That’s human love, so imagine how much greater God’s love is. In fact, we know it’s extent from John 3:16, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life“. There is no greater love than that, and throughout the Bible the theme running through is God pursuing mankind, His love unstinting and so extensive that it would not stop at anything to restore His creation back to its rightful place. 

Paul wrote in Ephesians 3:17-19, “Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God”. Paul wrote about the extent of God’s love with an unlimited three dimensional picture of width, length and height, which we know from Psalm 36 completely fills an infinite universe. But Paul added an additional dimension, “depth”, and I take from this that Paul was referring to a fourth dimension, time. God’s love not only fills the universe but it is also eternal and timeless, and it pursues us whatever the age in which we have been born. 

And there is more about God’s love. Paul wrote in Romans 8:38-39, “And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord”. 

Do we pilgrims feel God’s love today? Even if we don’t, we know it is there. There is nothing we can do to stop it. We can deny it. We can refuse it. We can even throw it back into God’s face. But we can never stop it. God’s love for us humans knows no bounds and He keeps on loving us day after day, hour after hour, and forever. And in worship we offer our grateful hearts, in an offering of love and service, “forever and ever”.

Dear Father God, thank You for Jesus, the One who loved us so much that He was prepared to die for us. Such love! Thank You Lord. Amen.

Praise the Lord

Posted on by korgrocker

“Praise the Lord, all you nations. 
Praise Him, all you people of the earth. 
For His unfailing love for us is powerful; 
the Lord’s faithfulness endures forever. 
Praise the Lord!”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭117:1-2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Now here’s a short Psalm. Just two verses. But it’s very clear in its content. In its exhortation, everyone is instructed to “Praise the Lord”. No exceptions. No time off for doing other things. And the Psalmist seriously lays out the reason for the praise – the powerful nature of God’s love for us, and the everlasting, eternal, nature of His faithfulness. If we look closely we can see that both His love and His faithfulness are not just passing whims, sputtering out after a while like a candle at the end of its usefulness; God’s love and faithfulness are unfailing and enduring. They go on for ever. Regardless of circumstances.

In case we miss the point of these two verses and consign them to history as being Old Testament, we have an example of God’s love and its extent laid out in the first century AD. The Apostle Paul reminded the early Roman church about the love of God. He wrote in Romans 5:8, “But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners.” And he goes on to say, “So now we can rejoice in our wonderful new relationship with God because our Lord Jesus Christ has made us friends of God.” How can we ever get our minds around the fact that God loved us so much, even when He endured so much abuse from sinners, and yet He still pressed through in displaying and implementing a love for us beyond comprehension. That is truly “powerful” love. And regarding God’s faithfulness, Paul again writing to his protégé Timothy, said, “If we are unfaithful, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny who He is.” (‭‭2 Timothy‬ ‭2:13‬).

So there we have it. The loving and faithful God working through the centuries. Never changing. Never leaving us. Day after day. Problem after problem. We can see why the psalmist finished this Psalm with a “Praise the Lord!”. Let’s do the same.

The Great Assembly

Posted on by korgrocker

“I have not kept the good news of Your justice hidden in my heart; I have talked about Your faithfulness and saving power. I have told everyone in the great assembly of Your unfailing love and faithfulness.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭40:10‬ ‭NLT‬‬

David, the Psalmist behind Psalm 40, never hid his relationship with his loving Heavenly Father from the people around him. He always communicated things about God – His justice, faithfulness, saving power, unfailing love – to those around him in the “great assembly”, as we can see from this verse. These were things about God that he had experienced through a life spent close to God. That is not to say he was perfect and never sinned (Bathsheba?) or made mistakes but his heart was after God all his life. And so, David told people around him all the things he knew about God. He was a natural evangelist.

As a Christian I have a story to tell. Through the things God has done for me, my faith in Him has grown. I have experienced His grace and mercy, His love and kindness, His faithfulness even when I haven’t been faithful. He has put a hope for the future in my heart so real and pressing that it is bursting out to inform others.

But this “great assembly”. Is it the church we attend? It could be, but God’s heart is for the lost. Luke records this verse in his Gospel, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent” – Luke 15:7. C.S Lewis said, “The salvation of a single soul is more important than the production or preservation of all the epics and tragedies in the world“. So the “great assembly” consists of our friends, family, and community, not just the church we attend. We may not be Billy Grahams, speaking to thousands in one rally after another. But I am, as the quotation from J.T.Hiles says, “a beggar telling another beggar where to find bread“. 

So, like David, we must take every opportunity to tell others the “good news” about God. May we never be guilty of keeping it to ourselves.